Emergency Only Mobile

english-setter

thanks to all of you who've replied to this thread - when I said 'emergency' I didn't mean an actual 999 emergency just that I rarely make mobile calls (although the stuff about 999s was enlightening), so sorry to mislead!! there seems to be a good deal with tesco at the moment, so I think I'm going to go with them. Just one thing - if you have a PAYG phone and lose it, other than the fact that you no longer have it and lose any PAYG credit, is there anything else to worry about (ie do I need to insure it or can I not bother?). Cheers

Edinburghlass_2

For the price you pay nowadays for a cheap mobile, its really not worth insuring.

I would suggest that if you buy one of the Virgin reconditioned phones that you register the number with them and then if its lost or stolen they can block both the phone and the simcard against any further use. My daughter had this happen when she left her bag somewhere and despite realising within 10 minutes and phoning the place it was gone.

I called Virgin and they could tell the phone had already been used but got it blocked to save any further calls then sent out a new simcard free of charge within a couple of days that included the credit that was left.

Woby_Tide

gizmoleeds wrote:

Can't you? You can with all the phones I've ever owned (enter the emergency service numbers that is - I've never needed to actually call them)

Even before you enter the pin it has "SOS" as an option. You certainly wouldn't need credit to call 999.

You can enter the emergency numbers yes (i.e. 112/999), thats part of the phone's software which will be utilised worldwide and on many different networks, actually calling and connecting though, that's down to the national networks of the country you are calling from. For the very reason of preventing users keeping mobiles for use 'only in emergencies', the UK networks have the facility to handle any SOS calls disabled, and have done since they started I think. If you tried it abroad though, it would probably work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_telephone_number

gizmoleeds

I think many networks do connect emergency calls though. There was a story recently in the paper about a kid who used an old mobile to call 999 beacuse his dad wouldn't give him a drink till he tidied his room.